first thing this morning. Their security cameras were focused on the front and back doors and inside the place, not the parking lot. They didn’t show anything unusual. I’ve obtained traffic cam footage around the time you went to Sweet Haven and would like you to view it with me. The rat must have been placed in your trunk during the twenty minutes you were inside the ice-cream parlor. Did you notice a car following you when you left at lunchtime yesterday?”
“No, but I have to confess—” she paused, hating to admit she’d been careless “—I wasn’t paying attention. I was relishing getting away from the courthouse for an hour. I’ve felt so confined since the Villa trial started.”
“For a good reason. Bento Villa is high up in the Coastal Cartel and its drug ring component.”
“He sure isn’t cooperating with the prosecution. He was offered a good deal in exchange for information on the cartel. He refused it. Not that I thought he would take a deal.” Thinking about the threat now hanging over her, she approached the police officer. “Sammy and Camy, it’s time to go back inside. What do you say to Officer Carter?”
“Thank you,” Sammy said in a loud voice that half the neighborhood probably heard, while Camy mumbled her thanks.
“I appreciate you doing this,” Aubrey said then tried to corral her two children toward the front porch. Finally Sammy glued himself to Sean while Camy took Aubrey’s hand and practically dragged her toward the house.
“Is your car like that?” Sammy asked Sean, slowing his pace.
Sean patted Sammy’s shoulder and kept walking right behind Aubrey. “Similar.”
Her son pointed to the top of Sean’s SUV. “Where’s your siren?”
“Inside the vehicle. I stick it on top if I need to.”
At the bottom of the steps, Sammy’s forehead winkled. “But no one will know you’re a policeman.”
Sean chuckled and proceeded up the steps to the porch. “Sometimes I don’t want them to know.”
Aubrey held the front door open. “Hurry up, Sammy, or the mosquitoes will invade the house. You know how much they love biting me.”
“Me, too,” Camy said and hurried into the house and down the hall toward the kitchen.
When everyone was inside, Aubrey shut the door and locked it. Her son remained next to Sean. “Sammy, I need to talk to him. Grandma is fixing breakfast.”
He stuck out his bottom lip. “I already had cereal.”
“That was to tide you over until Grandma got up to fix our big breakfast we have on Saturday as a family.” Her mother also did it Sunday before church. She drew in a deep breath. “It smells like pancakes, probably chocolate chip.”
Sammy took off for the kitchen.
“He has two speeds, fast or slow. Usually with no in between.” Aubrey gestured toward her office. “We can talk in here.”
Inside the room, she closed the door. “I appreciate your quick response on this. Anything I can do to help, I will. Let’s look at the traffic cam footage. Maybe it’ll jog my memory.”
“I hope so.” He made his way to the couch and sat. After he took out his laptop, she joined him on the love seat. Sitting next to him, only inches away, caused her heart to beat faster. A faint musky scent wafted to her as she tried to focus on the video.
“I’m starting when you left the courthouse, and we’ll follow your trip as best as we can, since Port Bliss only has traffic cams in the downtown area and a few roads in and out of town.”
The sight of a white sedan a couple of cars behind her while she drove from the clothing store to Sweet Haven nagged at her mind. When she drove into the parking lot on the side of the ice-cream parlor, the white car passed on by, not even slowing down. For the next twenty minutes, she kept expecting to see it, but she didn’t.
“I thought for a moment the person in the white sedan might be following me, but it kept going.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because...” Her voice faded as she searched her mind, trying to remember why it had bothered her. Other cars had been behind her. Why that one?
Because the white car had been in the parking lot at the clothing store and pulled out into traffic when she left the shop—it was the only vehicle that started following her from there.
Sean rewound the video footage, paused it and zoomed in on the white vehicle, trying to make out the license plate. The last three numbers were 249, but he couldn’t make out the first part of it. “Is there something that makes you suspicious of that car?”
Aubrey sat back on the couch. “When I saw it on the screen, it provoked a memory. I don’t remember seeing it when it was behind me. It was at least six cars back and hidden from my view in the rearview mirror. But when I left the parking lot at the clothing store, that white car pulled into it. The person must have turned around fast to be behind me when I went to Sweet Haven.”
“Did you see the driver?”
“I glanced for maybe a second or two in that direction. The glass was tinted too dark to make out the driver.”
“White is the most common color for a vehicle. What makes you think the one in the parking lot is the same car on this footage?”
“The driver’s-side back fender has a dent in it.” Aubrey leaned forward and tapped the computer screen. “There.”
Sean focused onto the area she indicated. “It’s a Chevy Malibu. So the driver must have turned around in the clothing store parking lot as you said and quickly pulled back out into the traffic. I’ll follow up on this and see who owns the car.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you could tell what make it was, because all I saw was a white car.”
He chuckled. “It’s a man thing.” He punched the key to forward the video. “He didn’t park near the Sweet Haven Parlor.”
“But he could have driven around to the street behind Sweet Haven and parked there, then made his way to where my car was. The lot was almost full. I parked at the back in the last space.”
“There are a lot of ice-cream lovers in Port Bliss.” Sean closed his laptop and turned slightly toward her—only inches separated them. A blush tinted her cheeks pink. The dark brown—almost black—in her eyes transfixed him for a long moment.
Finally she slid her gaze away. “Sweet Haven also has sandwiches for the lunchtime crowd.”
Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. He inhaled deeply and rose. “I’ll keep you updated on what I find.”
“What about the police officer outside? How long is he staying?”
“If you go somewhere,
